Making it easy - Automatic download and install

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 11:06:04PM -0800, Joe Crawford wrote:

> So going back to the nvidia driver. All the utilities in the world
> won't make it easy. If the user isn't prompted during install, (or
> once they've enter the gui) with a dialog box that says something
> like:
> 
> 
> #################
> Install Nvidia Video Drivers?
> 
> The software necessary for your video card to run its fastest can be
> automatically downloaded and installed for you.
> 
> It has restrictive licensing and is not open source like the rest of the system.
> 
> I will however make your system much faster displaying and working
> with graphics, especially 3D graphics.
> 
> Would you like to automatically download and install this software?
> #################

There are a few simple reasons why we don't do this.  For most users, the
free nv driver is more than sufficient.  The proprietary nvidia driver
causes programs to unexpectedly fail, crashes the X server, panics the
kernel, and hangs the system.

-- 
 - mdz